In a motor vehicle the output element of the engine, normally the drive shaft or flywheel, is normally connected to the drive train's input element, normally a side of a clutch or torque converter, by means of a flexible disk whose one periphery is connected to the one element and whose other periphery is connected to the other. This makes it possible for there to be some axial misalignment between the engine and drive train to compensate for thermally caused movements, twisting created by torque loads, and the like, as it is virtually impossible to maintain the engine and drive train perfectly coaxial. The disk must transmit torque with no losses while permitting this axial offset.
Such a disk, as described in German Utility Model 1,971,310, compensates both for axial nonparallelism and even relative axial displacement of the drive-train and engine elements. In this arrangement the disk has circular inner and outer peripheries respectively connected to the engine output element and transmission input element.
In order to compensate for some radial misalignment it has been suggested in German patent 3,222,119 to replace the outer bores with radially extending slots so that some slippage can take place at the connection to the drive-train input element. Such a system has shown itself to be, however, of very short service life due to wear at these outer bores.